


Strong

by Severina



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Community: hc_bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-31
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2018-01-06 20:37:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1111245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/pseuds/Severina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the weeks after they lose the farm, Beth finds herself staring at the scar on her wrist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strong

**Author's Note:**

> Post Season Two. Written for LJ's hc_bingo for the prompt "self-harm"
> 
> * * *

In the weeks after they lose the farm, Beth finds herself staring at the scar on her wrist. She traces her fingers over it when they're settled for the night, huddled inside a home that stinks of mildew and cat piss and the rotting carcasses of the former owners that the men have put down like rabid dogs and dragged into the yard. She knows every bump and ridge, every pucker of skin. 

Maggie sees her, once, when she's staring out a dirty window and running her finger back and forth, back and forth. Her sister sits next to her on the ledge, puts an arm around her and kisses her dirty hair. Her sister murmurs words about their lost mother, about Annette and Shawn, about being strong. And Beth nods and lets Maggie stroke her hair, fakes a smile and pretends that she feels better when Maggie is done talking.

She makes sure that no one sees what she's doing after that. But she still catches Maggie watching her carefully after the foraging expedition at the old Gas N Sip on Route 8, and her father glancing up from where he's bandaging a cut on Carl's finger to check surreptitiously on her. Glenn comes to stand beside her when she's on watch, makes small talk even though he should be sleeping. And Rick hovers on the periphery, looking away furtively when she meets his eye.

Beth knows they worry. She knows they think the worst. But she doesn't want to hurt herself again.

She touches the scar so she can be reminded of where she's been. She traces the edges of the delicate white line so she can remember the way the light shone on the sliver of glass, and the way the blood bubbled up in a thin red line on her pale skin. She wants to remember the sharp sting of the broken mirror cutting flesh, and her own shocked, frightened eyes reflected up at her in that tiny slice of glass. 

It's only through remembering that she'll have the strength to never go back to that place in her head.

It's Daryl who only nods her way, barely notices her when she's there. So it's to him that she goes, him that she sits beside late at night when everyone else is asleep and there is only the light of a single candle stub to illuminate his instructions. She learns how to take apart and reconstruct her handgun, how to clean it and reload on the fly. She learns how to stab and pivot with a knife, how to go in for the kill and then dance away unharmed. She drives with Daryl to a field miles away from their most recent temporary home and uses some precious ammunition to practice her shot, listens when he corrects her, gets good and then very good. 

She learns how to protect herself and her family and her friends, so she'll never feel that scared and alone and helpless again.

"Feeling better?" Daryl says to her one day, six months after they lose the farm, when they have been sharing living quarters with the rats in a set of storage lockers for a few weeks and things have actually been relatively peaceful.

She furrows her brow, confused, until he juts his chin toward her wrist. It's only then that she realizes that's it been weeks, maybe months, since she felt the urge to trace that fine scar, to see the gushing blood in her mind's eye. Only then that she realizes that Daryl is a lot more observant than he lets on.

She smiles, and for once it doesn't feel odd or misplaced on her face. 

"Better," she says.


End file.
